GLP Capital Partners (GCP) has closed China Income Fund VIII (CIF VIII), the latest fund in its flagship onshore income fund series, with equity commitments of about 2.6 billion yuan ($358.8 million), the firm announced on Thursday.
The capital was raised from a group of five domestic insurance companies, including existing investors in GCP’s previous onshore RMB funds.
The CIF VIII portfolio comprises over 5 billion yuan ($689.9 million) of core, income-generating modern logistics assets with a total gross floor of 870,000 square metre (almost 9.4 million square feet) located across key logistics hubs, including Shanghai, Guangzhou, Zhongshan, Xiamen, Changsha, and Chengdu.
The assets were seeded from GLP’s balance sheet and are leased to companies in the manufacturing, logistics, e-commerce, and retail sectors.
“We continue to attract capital from investors seeking access to our proprietary pipeline of high-quality income-producing assets in China and plan to establish additional funds to capitalise on the demand,” said Teresa Zhuge, Executive Vice Chairman and President of China at GCP, in a company statement.
GCP introduced its first RMB-denominated strategy in 2017 to meet the growing demand from domestic institutional investors for income-producing logistics and industrial assets in China. Since then, the firm has expanded its onshore RMB funds business to 128 billion yuan, offering over 20 strategies across real assets and private equity (PE).
Collectively, GCP has about $58 billion in assets under management (AUM) in China for a global network of over 90 institutional private capital partners, including more than 60 institutional investors from domestic China.
The new fund follows the official introduction of GCP as a global alternative asset management business affiliated with the Singapore-based GLP, which owns, develops, and operates logistics real estate, data centres, renewable energy, and related technologies in 17 countries across Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
The parent group launched GCP in February this year by reorganising and transferring its global fund management business to the new entity, which is tasked to invest primarily through real asset and PE strategies. GCP also combined with GLP Capital Partners LP, a US-based investment advisor.
The completion of CIF VIII comes more than seven months after the close of GLP China Income Fund VII, the seventh in GCP’s logistics income fund, at 5.4 billion yuan in November 2022. The predecessor fund was seeded with 13 stabilised modern logistics assets from GLP’s balance sheet, with a total leasable area of 800,000 square metre.
Its 7.6-billion-yuan GLP China Income Fund VI, which was also closed in November 2022, was seeded with 20 stabilised modern logistics assets across 19 cities, serving clients in e-commerce, logistics, and retail sectors with a total leasable area of 2.13 million square metre.